Everything to Someone: Saint Valentine's Day Miscellany

Feb. 12, Feast of St. Eulalia, patroness of runaways, torture victims, and widows.

I've seen a lot of Sesame Street renditions and factsforkids! picture books, and while we do enjoy reading My Fuzzy Valentine occasionally (er, my three-year-old enjoys it), the literary snob in me prefers something a little more artful. Composition, design, storytelling, and illustration: these books about love are what we're reading for Saint Valentine's Day.

1 // Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak isn't your classical love story, maybe, but when we read, "he wanted to be where someone loved him best of all" . . . if you have a wild things (or things), you know, you know.

2 // All the Touch and Feel seasonal books are in our library because of how they correspond with the feast days. And I just like seeing how they make each page and picture sensory, even if it is only the one sense (touch . . . and feel?).

3 // The Wishing of Biddy Malone was a grocery store clearance find. I'd not heard of Joy Cowley before, but apparently, she is a children's book giant! Her voice as a storyteller is fantastic--she gets the Irishness into the narrative without sounding trite or silly--and the love story is a classic folklore, while remaining entirely new.

4 // Barbara Lavalee's folksy, robust illustrations colored my childhood, and now they enrich my son's. Like with Where the Wild Things Are, Mama, Do You Love Me? not what immediately comes to mind when you think Valentine's Day reading, but I daresay it's improved my and my son's understanding of each other. The universality of the message is beautifully complimented by the culture-specific details.

5 // BabyLit's Romeo & Juliet: because they're never too young to start indoctrinating with Shakespeare. In truth, though, counting out the roses, love letters, and streets and bridges with my three-year-old has yielded positive results.

Inspired by Pam and Susan and Angie, I put together these valentines and Saint Valentine's Day printables (you can either click the picture to enlarge, right-click and print, or save them to your own hard drive and print from there or arrange in Word, Publisher, or another program). I'll probably end up using one of their many fun project and celebratory ideas this feast day, as Afon's birthday is the day before and his birthday party the day after: no time for extra planning!

It's kind of annoying to me that the "saint" in Saint Valentine's Day is so often overlooked, so I made sure to make my pictures extra Catholic-y. You know, short of an actual picture of the post-martyred saint.